The last few days I’ve been really appreciating some of the stuff that’s come in over my Twitter. I have to offer a huge thank you to Merlin Mann, who’s ‘Popetiquette’ remarks today had me laughing my ass off in my office at work, twice. Merlin and Nick Douglas between them have given me multiple fits of the ‘Twiggles’ this week.
Apr 15 2008
Astoundingly… astounding!
I discovered this evening that, as part of their Windows Live! Services, Microsoft provide a Blogging tool called ‘Writer’. Now it would have been easy for them to only make it work with Live! Spaces and nothing else, but what I actually found was something much cooler. It supports Wordpress, and as such I am writing this post from the app in question. Minds are slowly opening up at Microsoft I think. Slowly but surely they are learning that there is a big world out there that is outside and has some super cool stuff going on. While a nice blogging tool is only a tiny thing to most people, it’s just another sign. More of this please Microsoft, and less threats of legal wrangling with Open Source authors.
UPDATE: slightly disappointingly, the Tags system in writer doesn’t interact correctly with the tag cloud database in Wordpress. Not a biggy but still a bit of a bummer.
Apr 14 2008
OpenMac - What? April Fools was weeks ago!
This is some sort of insane Joke, right? Selling to the general public a computer with a copy of OS X with a pre-violated User License? That’s not good guys…
I especially like the part about ‘non-safe’ Software updates. Really nice. The average user is REALLY gonna understand that one 
Hmmm… we’ve seen this attempt to create non-Apple Macs before from people selling Apple hardware in their own cases:
http://web.archive.org/web/20031120002821/http://2khappyware.com/
Anyone remember that?
They got their asses sued so damn hard they almost spontaneously caught fire in the process.
I don’t expect this Psystar bunch to last long before Apple Legal catches up.
Hark! Is that the sound of the world’s largest proverbial ton of bricks I hear hurtling towards them?
UPDATE: Yes, it appears it’s now called the ‘Open Computer‘ instead… Interesting.
Apr 14 2008
Definitely need some of these…
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1093.html
I could use at east half a dozen of those 
Apr 12 2008
The BBC ain’t payin! (Or at least I don’t think they should)
I have been listening to the debate between the BBC and British ISPs of late. Last year the BBC introduced an internet TV service called ‘iPlayer’, which serves up popular BBC TV and Radio. This has prompted a firestorm from UK ISPs, whose already groaning broadband network is now under more strain than ever from people streaming content from the BBC, and other Video services.
The recent revelation that UK ISPs are now calling for BBC funds to be provided to offset the estimated 830 million GBP (Source: Ofcom, via BBC) of spending needed to upgrade the UK broadband network has me really pissed off…
I imagine what kind of reaction consumers would get if they asked the BBC for funding to upgrade their TVs to digital. Or the BBC provides HD TV for some channels, but I don’t see anyone asking for BBC funds to upgrade everyone’s TVs to HD. UK ISPs are ripping consumers off left right and centre. If they can’t find the money to upgrade what is a chronically dated system, that pre-BBC iPlayer was *already suffering under excessive load*, then they are not fit to provide internet services. They make stack of money by selling fake unlimited contracts to people, so why haven’t they got he money to invest in upgrading the infrastructure, or is it just the case that they needed a scape goat?
My theory is that *all* media services are putting a heavy load on UK ISP networks. YouTube cannot be ignored for example, it’s become hugely popular in the last 2 years and must put a huge strain on the network, iTunes and their music store selling TV and music over the internet to UK customers can’t help either. That’s just 2 examples, given a few minutes I could think of a lot more I’m sure. The problem afoot here is not that the BBC in particular, although they are undeniably putting a lot of traffic across uK networks, are not the sole source of this problem. The internet is changing, and UK ISPs are lagging behind *yet again*. Video on demand services are more numerously available, and more people are using them than ever. The network needs upgrading and rather than get their heads down and upgrade it like they should be doing, UK ISPs are, yet again (we’ve already seen them try and blame file sharing an piracy), trying to find a scapegoat to prevent them having to get off their fat-cat arses and sort the bloody problem out properly.
Ofcom should simply turn round and tell them to sort it out IMHO. It’s not the BBC’s problem, it’s not the consumer’s problem.
Apr 06 2008
TwitterLocal - the thing that made Twitter useful to me
Great tool, developed by Matt King:
http://www.twitterlocal.net
Mar 20 2008
Bravo, Mr Gruber…
via Daring Fireball
I have to extend congratulations to John Gruber again, for another damningly accurate critique of a typical tech-fluff article. Leander Kahney wrote an article about how Apple is evil and secretive and horrid and a proper meanie.
The original article was lame. Gruber’s critique is sublime.
Mar 20 2008
The Joy of Wordpress
I’d forgotten how much of a Joy Wordpress was to install. Seriously, it’s so smooth. Sure it takes a while to get everything in place (and I keep remembering stuff I need to do as I go along), but it’s another piece of well done Web 2.0. Oh, and it’s free, which is always great.
